Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

employed on this beautiful cruise ship that travels up and down the coast, except for in the wet season. The decision has been made by the owner, the chairman of the company, to spend $32 million—I hope you lot are listening over there—on another cruise ship to be built in Henderson. Henderson is south of Fremantle. It is a shipbuilding area in WA. There is some defence stuff and a lot of private stuff there.

We are going to have a $32 million spend. Senator Lambie is right over this and will correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is an 18-month build and then there will be another 60-odd Aussies employed. There will be young Australians employed on this ship as the skipper, the master or whatever. Mr Milby is the person who raised this concern. He said: 'Hang on. If we deregister, what about my Aussie crew? I will not be able to compete with international ships coming down from Asia.' He was told by the officials—and they know who they are, from doing this at estimates—'Well just get foreign workers.' But Mr Milby does not want foreign workers. He quite clearly said it is not a case of him sacking his Australian crew. He is not going to sack his Australian crew, but he will be forced out of business.

There are about 20 of these companies that operate out of Broome, between Broome and Darwin. It is not just Mr Milby and North Star, or True North. We can see what will happen. They will come down from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia or wherever, and the rates of pay will be nowhere near what they are here. They will supply the vessels up there with all their food and maintenance and they will head back there. We will farewell 60-odd Aussies from one ship. If this happens, it will be 120 Aussies from two ships—'Get lost. Go away. Bye.' There are another 19 companies out there. This is just stupidity.

It is alright for Mr Truss to start this nonsense. He is off enjoying his parliamentary pension. What makes it worse is that the young ones coming through seem to be just as silly, naive or uneducated—can I say that, Mr Deputy President? They just do not give a damn about Aussie jobs. How can any Australian sit there and say that this is a good idea? They did it on the Portland. They got rid of the Aussies from the Portland. They got them off in the middle of the night and replaced them with foreign seafarers. I know they are under a bit of pressure and I get all that. So we think this is just fantastic that we are going to get rid of every—

Debate interrupted.